A recent bid to have Wales issue its own banknotes was supported by Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, but shot down by the Conservatives.
The attitude amongst such people has always been “yes of course the Scots can do it- but Wales? Oooo, got to be careful there! Are you really sure they would be able to handle it? Are you really?”
If printing notes runs up against that sort of patronising opposition, getting control of a Welsh central bank could be difficult.
A proper federal structure as you suggest could certainly work- if all parties were genuinely interested in making it work and enthusiastic for it.
Let’s hope they would be. The more options the better.
I was up in Cumbria recently, where they are reasonably used to Scottish notes, but I happened to be in a pub, standing (I could still stand at that point) behind a chap who tried to pay with Northern Irish notes. The lady behind the bar politely but firmly refused him, saying she didn’t have the necessary authority (she would have taken Scottish notes). The chap was a bit exasperated … it does say on them “pounds Sterling” (I didn’t get a really good look at them though.
Looking at Wikipedia page, it seems that she was probably within her rights to refuse him, but the pub management could have taken the decision itself to accept them (although I’m not sure what they’d do with them).
More info here:
Interesting that it says they are actually promissory notes, c.f. @owainlurch 's post.
Isn’t it the case that the idea that shopkeepers have to accept “legal tender” is a bit of a myth? That a court will accept legal tender as payment for a debt between two parties in a court case, but a shopkeeper or indeed any private individual can demand or refuse any payment he pleases in day to day life?
A publican can demand payment in chickens, as long as he declares the value on his tax forms?
And can refuse payment of bank notes completely if they are a bit dirty, he doesn’t like the picture of the queen on that one, or its the third Thursday in the month. Or just because.
So they can refuse sterling Bank of England notes, let alone Scottish or Northern Irish ones.
Could well be wrong though. Can’t even remember where I get that from.
[And then there’s even the difference in Scottish law over legal tender, which I wouldn’t even think I know the first thing about!]
We can handle it, that isn’t the issue, it’s retailers, they can barely cope with Scottish and Northern Irish notes, with the ‘sorry we don’t take this’ attitude. It’s pathetic, whenever I travelled home from Scotland, always a high chance of my ‘funny money’ not being accepted.
Is it possible to edit the title of this thread. I find obscenities even when initialised to be offensive and I suspect that they conflict with this forum’s standards
Byes, that quote of mine is taken a little out of context…
I just want to make it clear that it is that attitude which I was using as an illustration of something to be condemned.
Absolutely! The fact that Wales similarly had notes until 1908, and the ones introduced by Richard Williams seem to have been far more similar in principal than I thought is something I would not have known until this forum! Quite important too- it shows that the “natural” idea of Wales not having its own notes is simply the narrative pushed by the establishment.
You might want to check this, but my understanding is that there were a lot of unofficial currencies used by the owners of the various steelworks and mines - (the victorian parasites who plundered our wealth and future prosperity). These were only valid in communities and shops effectively owned by these works/people. It was a clever and perhaps sinister way of enslaving the workers, so all their earnings were repratriated if you like back to the owners. Basically the workers, worked in return for being fed and housed - very little cost to the owners, who ensured that they didn’t miss a penny of the profits (or whatever currency they called it).
This was effectively an assortment of microeconomies - scaled down versions of how the macroeconomy actually works.
It’s awful - when the owners were quakers like the Rowntrees, bournvilles and Cadburies etc, then their moral compass ensured that the workers were treated fairly. When the owners were the Crawshays, Cranes, Marquis of Bute etc, then their morals were very different.
A guide in Cardiff Castle told me once to tell me to stop my daughter running on the other side of the roped off area, where there were valuable old books and I thought to myself, what a cheek - these books were bought with blood money.
Careful, please Dave. We like to keep the tone as friendly as possible here. There were much better ways that you could have used to make that (valid) point.
Diolch! Interesting stuff! Mind you, if they were microeconomies I would say it was in a very restricted sense* - the whole point of payment in goods or tokens only redeemable at a company shop was to completely eliminate any competition and thus reduce wages. Effectively destroying a main idea of an economy. But yes, any currency has to be widely accepted to be a useful currency. In a perfect world, the workers would have simply stopped working for him and gone to another employer who either 1. Sold goods from his shop at reasonable prices, (incidentally meaning the tokens themselves might have acquired some value outside the shops owned by him)or 2. More likely (as this would be less expense to the employer) paid in already widely accepted currency. The effective monopoly on employment in the times and area put employers in a situation where they could exploit people terribly (not that an absence of monopoly stops exploitation, but the presence of a monopoly does tend to make exploitation easier and increase it.)
*wouldn’t you have to use the most literal meaning of a microeconomy - the examination of how an individual would dispose of limited resources. (I think! It’s years since I did economics, and I wasn’t paying attention at the time , so could well be wrong!). But with payment in goods even that would disappear.
Thanks for that, it’s a very interesting subject, and a reminder of what people had to go through. Diolch!
